1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to the field of computer processing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Artificial intelligence systems commonly perform tasks to simulate human decision making processes. One common task performed by artificial intelligence is determining a path between a starting point and an ending point (final destination). This is often referred to as path finding.
One example of an artificial-intelligence path finding algorithm is the “a-star” algorithm. The a-star algorithm determines a path to take between a starting point and an ending point by first creating a two-dimensional grid of a scene which contains the starting point, the ending point, and other objects located within the scene. Next, the a-star algorithm calculates cost factors associated with different blocks created by the grid. The cost factors may take into consideration the proximity of the blocks from the starting point and the proximity of the block form the destination or ending point. After the cost factors for blocks are calculated, the a-star algorithm selects blocks which have lower cost factors to determine a path to take from the starting point to the destination point.
Although the a-star algorithm may calculate a possible path to take from the starting point to the destination point, the a-star algorithm may require a signification number of calculations to create the grid and to calculate cost factors associated with the different blocks formed by the grid. Therefore, there exists a need for more efficient techniques and devices to perform artificial intelligence path-finding.